Analysis_of_a_Corpse_Keeper

Nicole Hendricks Kevin McDonough Intro to Literature 25 October 2010 The Analysis of a Corpse Keeper The date is March the 8th. It is a cold and utterly bitter day. The view from my office window shows people clinging to their hats and scarves as the gusts of wind nearly blow them off. As I look through my list of clients for the day, I realize my first appointment is in merely 8 minutes! I gather my thoughts and begin to read over the profile belonging to a Miss Emily Grierson. Miss Grierson is a 74 year old woman living on her own. She is being sent for evaluation as per the request of Judge Stevens. He goes on proclaiming that the help she needs is out of the hands of himself and the townspeople. He proclaims that she makes up her own rules and adheres to them as she pleases. He states that she refuses to pay her taxes. She also refuses to have any numbers attached to her home. This is a problem due to the updated federal mail service. Townsfolk were constantly complaining of an unbearable aroma coming from her home. Action was taken, and lime was spread around the foundation of her house. This lasted for a period of time. Judge Stevens states that Miss Grierson exhibits unbalanced and bizarre behavior. Once she was ordered to clean up her property and declined, city officials performed a search throughout her home. They were astonished to find the dead body of her former lover in an upstairs bedroom. This clearly explains the smell surrounding her home. She also had an extremely difficult time turning over her fathers dead body when he had passed. After 3 long days, she finally handed the body over to authorities. Judge Stevens suggests Miss Emily must have a mental or psychological disorder to act in such an eccentric, and grotesque manner. Eleven minutes has passed and I hear a delicate knock at the door. I thank my secretary, greet Emily at the door and invite her in. She makes it perfectly clear that it is Miss Emily. I apologize and I see that she has made her way past the leather couch my patients sit on. She grabs hold of one of the arms and plops her plump body into my chair. It were as if she were too good to sit on the leather couch. Nevertheless I begin with our session. I ask if she would like to start by telling me a little about herself. I receive nothing but a blank cold stare. I try to warm up to the frozen woman to ease the atmosphere, but no such luck. I then begin to ask why she is here with me, and grumbles in a rusty voice that it was not her doing. She claims that she is under immense speculation and knows that she is the subject of gossip among neighbors in her town. I try to intervene cautiously but ultimately fail. Miss Emily lashes demands to be taken back home. I realize this session is not going in any particular direction and she lets herself out. Miss Grierson provides absolutely zero insight. I must make my psychoanalysis strictly based off her file and my four minutes spent with her. As I carefully read over the file, I be sure to not make judgments but professional analysis. A disorder is defined as a derangement or abnormality of function; a morbid physical or mental state. Further more, a mental disorder is defined as any illness with a psychological origin, manifested either in symptoms of emotional distress or in abnormal behavior. I decide to take a look at a particular disorder called Necrophilia. Necrophilia is the obsessive fascination with death and corpses. It is an erotic attraction to or sexual contact with corpses. It describes a powerful desire to control another, usually in the context of a romantic or deeply personal relationship. Miss Grierson has displayed some of these qualities. It seems she has an incalculable time letting go of the men who helped to shape her life. And unfortunately this is regardless of whether or not they have died. It seems her unstable mental state has lead her to carry out the distorted act of killing and keeping the body of her former lover. It seems Miss Grierson tends to live life on her own terms, making and abiding only by the rules and laws in which she created. A clear example is her refusal to pay her taxes. Perhaps Miss Emily’s refusal to give up her dead father and lover is her way of possessing complete and total power over them. Although to outsiders this behavior is portrayed as gross, nightmarish, eerie, twisted or morbid- this is Miss Grierson’s way of keeping her loved ones permanently intact. She has an inability to evaluate reality in an impartial manner. Her rebuttal of allowing numbers to be put on her home for the mail system to presume, is an example of her detachment of reality and society. After an immense amount of time and though has been put into this evaluation, I think it is best to send Miss Emily Grierson to a Mental Institution for further testing and analysis. I believe she possess certain psychoses that are very prevalent and treatable. As a professional, it is hereby my recommendation to further her testing for the psychological disorder and treatment with necrophilia. Works Cited "mental illness." Dorland's Medical Dictionary for Health Consumers. 2007. Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc 28 Oct. 2010 http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/mental+illness